The prominent British horror production studios like Hammer and Amicus sadly ceased to exist during the mid-70's, and this loss also seemed to have a negative impact on the creative skills of the contemporary writers. Jimmy Sangster, once the brilliant mind behind genre classics such as "Taste of Fear" and "The Curse of Frankenstein", now delivered the severely lackluster script of the umpteenth haunted-house thriller. "The Legacy" is an incredibly disappointing horror-effort: overlong, boring, implausible and almost entirely fright-free. Sangster regretfully reverts to all the dreadful genre-clichés (secrets in the attic, slamming doors, hidden rooms
) and he depicts his native country England like one gigantic stereotype where everyone stops their activities to drink tea and where people continue to talk with a sophisticated tone of voice even though they're pure evil. The star-power involved in this production was nevertheless promising. Rising American stars Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross are backed up by a solid supportive British cast including names like Ian Hogg and Charles Gray and "The Who" lead-singer Roger Daltrey appears in a limited guest role. Director Richard Marquand even moved on to making "Return of the Jedi" despite having soiled his name with this turkey! Pretty much NOTHING happens within the first hour, apart from the introduction of many bleak & uninteresting characters. Following a suspicious yet appealing job offer, young architect Maggie Walsh and her fiancé Pete travel to the remote British countryside. Whilst doing a sightseeing trip on the first day, their motorcycle is run over by the Rolls Royce of a fancy local millionaire who subsequently offers them both a cup of tea in his ridiculously large mansion. Other guests arrive at the mansion and it pretty soon becomes clear that Pete and Maggie aren't supposed to leave the place. Maggie gets involved in bizarrely occult ceremonies that are organized to arrange the Mountolive family legacy. The guests are killed off peculiarly whilst Maggie and Pete can't seem to escape the estate no matter what they try. Marquand surely tries hard to make his film look spooky! All the mansion's rooms look frigid, there's a bunch of angry-looking cats running around (or maybe just one that pops up everywhere even on the movie poster) and all the forsaken roads in the rural area lead back to the estate. It doesn't work, however, as "The Legacy" is an insufferable boring and predictable thriller. I'm still "rewarding" this film with a generous 3 out of 10 rating, only because the murder sequences are ingenious and remotely gory. There's a spontaneous combustion, one poor woman dies when a mirror explodes in her face and another bloke's shotgun backfires on him. Very cool deaths, accomplished with decent special effects, it's such a shame you have to struggle yourself through the boring scenes in between them.
Review of The Legacy
